From the literature review of the previous chapter, we can observe that the majority of the studies and articles had concluded that there is a positive effect of EI in the process of leadership. From a total number of 67 studies and articles that have been reviewed, 57 mentioned a positive effect of EI in leadership process while the rest 10 mentioned opposite results. In the next paragraphs we will emphasize in more detail on the findings of the review.
Below in Table 4 we can see a summarize of literature review findings, according to the impact of EI in leadership styles and generally in leadership as a process. Notable findings are that leadership in general, transformational leadership, performance and effectiveness of leaders or subordinates have been proven to be positively influenced by EI, in several studies.
EI Impact
Positive Influence Negative Influence
Leadership generally 18 3
Transformational
leadership 14 6
Transcactional leadership 1 5
Lessaz-faire 0 7
Active & passive
management by exception 0 3
Contingent reward 5 0
Job Satisfaction 6 0
Performance 10 3
Extra-effort 3 0
Desirable outcomes 3 0
Effectiveness 23 2
Relations/Communication 9 0
Table 4 – Studies mentioned positive or negative impact of EI to several aspects
• Transformational leadership and EI
Transformational leadership seems to be positively affected when leaders are characterized by developed EI skills. 14 studies have shown positive correlation of transformational leadership an EI, while 6 studies noted a negative or none correlation.
This result seems to be logical, if we consider what transformational leadership is and where is it based on. Transformational leaders must provide vision, instill pride and gain respect, act as change agents and provide coaching and advising. According to Baker (2013) “Leaders establish strong emotional relationships with followers and use these relationships to inspire followers to go beyond what they believe they can accomplish”
(p.55). It is easily understood that leaders with high EI are able to be more effective as transformational leaders.
• Transactional leadership and EI
From the studies reviewed we can conclude that transactional leadership is little affected by the emotional intelligence skills of the leader. 5 studies proved negative relationship with EI. In 7 studies negative correlation have been found with lessaiz-faire and in 3 studies with management by exception either passive or active. This state can be explained by the fact that transactional leaders are heavily relied on disciplines to lead group’s performance up to standards (Bass, 1990). One study found positive correlation between EI and transactional leadership (Badri, 2013). The interesting finding from the literature review is that 5 studies mentioned that EI is positively correlated with contingent rewards, a characteristic of transactional leadership. Downey et al. (2006) explained this discordance by claiming that contingent rewards are arrangements between leaders and subordinates, and the success of those arrangements are “mediated by the regulation of mood and accurate recognition of the follower’s emotions by leaders” (p.260). An interesting mention was also made by Gardner and Stough (2002) who noted that contingent reward could be sub-component of transformational leadership.
• Effectiveness and EI
From the review, we can conclude that effectiveness of managers and subordinates is positively affected by EI of both parties. 23 studies resulted in positive correlation
between EI and effectiveness while only 2 in negative correlation. Although the scope of this dissertation is to examine the effect of EI on leadership effectiveness, we cannot overlook the fact that EI (either leader’s or subordinates’) is increasing subordinates’
effectiveness as well. With effective subordinates, the team is functioning effectively, the targeted goals are attained and the organization is benefited. This of course is translated to leader’s effectiveness.
• Performance and EI
10 studies from the literature review referred to positive correlation between EI and leader or subordinate’s performance, while 3 noted negative or no correlation. Van Oosten (2013) noted that a possible explanation of the positive correlation might be the fact that high EI leaders perform better because they know themselves and are choosing roles in organizations that suit their skills and abilities.
• Satisfaction, Desirable outcomes, Extra effort, Relationship, Communication and EI 21 studies have shown positive influence of EI on job satisfaction, extra effort of subordinates, relationship building and communication. Coetzee and Schaap (2005) mentioned that EI leaders are able to inspire followers to exert extra effort, resulting in an increased level of satisfaction of followers. George (2000) mentioned that leaders with high EI can build high quality relationships because they can create a climate of cooperation, enthusiasm and trust into the organization.
Furthermore, there have been extracted notable findings of EI impact regarding the working field of managers and subordinates based on samples that were analyzed. Below in Table 5 we can see the distribution of a number of studies on samples mentioned positive or negative impact of EI, according to the working field from which the sample was taken. 29 studies resulted in positive impact, while only 6 mentioned negative or no impact of EI. In all fields, more studies revealed a positive influence of EI in leadership, except the construction sector which 2 studies could not argue in EI usefuleness and 1 study the opposite.
EI Impact Sample source: Total Studies
from sector
Positive Influence
Negative Influence
Service Sector 6 6 0
Both Public & Private 4 3 1
Construction 3 1 2
Industrial &
Manufacturing 5 4 1
Private Sector 7 6 1
Public Sector 5 5 0
Safety forces & Sports 5 4 1
Total 35 29 6
Table 5 – Studies mentioned positive or negative impact of EI according to working sector
• EI in public sector
As mentioned before, public sector is a sector that occupies a huge number of employees in every corner of the world. The advantage of working in the public sector is that in most of the times it offers a job permanency, and usually performance evaluation is not applied.
Moreover, wages and benefits may be higher than in private companies such as better pension packages. From the reviewed studies we summarize that EI is positively affecting transformational leaders (Barbuto et.al (2006), Hur et al. (2011)) and increases the effectiveness of them (Hur et al. (2011), Rosete & Ciarrochi (2005)). Wong and Law (2002) mentioned that job performance did not relate with EI due to the fact that a culture of ignoring ratings from subordinates is existing on administrators.
• EI in private sector
In the same manner with public sector, leadership in private sector is positively influenced by emotional intelligence skills of leaders. 6 studies noted a positive influence on leadership process (Siren et al. (2020), Siamani (2019)) on leadership effectiveness (Kasapi (2019), Boyatzis & Ratti (2009), Van Oosten (2013)) and other aspects like performance, communications and satisfaction (Coetzee & Schaap (2005), Van Oosten (2013), Kasapi (2019)). One study mentioned negative correlation between transformational leadership and performance (Cavazotte (2012)). We can conclude from the above that EI could have positive impact on the leadership process in organizations.
• EI in samples from both private and public sector
The previous conclusions about the influence of EI in public and private sectors are strengthened by the results of the scholars that studied samples from both sectors.
Edelman & Van Knippenberg (2018), Gardner & Stough (2002) and Mishra & Mohapatra (2010) found positive correlation between EI and transformational leadership, effectiveness, performance, job satisfaction and contingent rewards. On the other hand, Follesdal & Hagtvet (2013) questioned their result of negative correlation between EI and transformational leadership, claiming that MSCEIT may not be effective.
• EI in industrial and manufacturing sector
In industrial and manufacturing sector EI seems to have positive effects on leaders who are mentioned as transformational leaders and in contingent rewards (Barling et al. (2000), Downey et al. (2006), Brown et al. (2006)). As aforementioned, transformational leadership is based on strong emotional relationships between leader and employees.
Industrial and manufacturing sectors due to the fluidity of the environment and the financial recession of last years, suffer many changes and transformational leaders are suitable for these occasions as they are more capable of inspiring a change by using their emotional intelligence skills. Weinberger (2009) wasn’t able to link EI with transformational leadership but mentioned that this could be explained by some limitations of MSCEIT. Transactional leadership and lessaiz-faire are negatively or non-correlated with EI in the industrial and manufacturing sector, which was expected because EI is not an aspect of these styles.
• EI in service provision and educational sector
EI found to have a positive effect on the service provision sector. Some scholars mentioned the positive correlation with effectiveness of leaders in such sectors (Lone &
Lone (2018), Udod et al. (2020), Badri (2013)). Lone M. and Lone A. (2018) noted that critical emotional intelligence skills increase leaders’ efficiency while Udod et al. (2020) mentioned that EI leaders are capable to achieve desirable results for the organization.
Badri (2013) mentioned that in software organizations, which nowadays are expanding enormously, EI affects positively both transformational and transactional leaders. From
the previous, it is obvious that EI helps leaders on service sector to be effective and bring the desirable outcomes. In educational field, Koukoli (2018) mentioned that EI has positive influence on effectiveness and relationship management of leaders. It seems that EI can play a positive role for school directors but we cannot extract a safe conclusion because we have not reviewed so many studies in this field. This fact is also enhanced by Koukolis’ claim that researches on the educational field are limited.
• EI in security forces and sports sector
In a working environment like Navy or Military, we could expect that EI could not have so much impact on leadership process because the commanding style of leaders is usually been met. The literature review of this dissertation revealed mixed results. EI is having almost the same positive impact on performance and satisfaction (Adrianos (2018), Dulewicz et al. (2018)). Like in other sectors transactional and lessaiz-faire leadership are negatively correlated with EI (Andrianos (2018), Culver (2016)). But results for transformational leadership are mixed with Andrianos (2018) finding positive correlation with EI while Culver (2016) negative. Thus, a safe conclusion cannot be made about impact on transformational leadership. From the author’s point of view, military service is stucked in old leadership habits and changes (in which transformational leaders are the most effective) are rarely occurring in this working field, making transformational leadership style a bit “useless”. In the sports field, emotions are usually raised and a coach who is able to manage team’s emotions in order to facilitate thinking and associated behaviors, will achieve their goals (Chan & Mallett (2011)). From our point of view, especially in team sports where emotions and moods are changing rapidly, coaches need to have high self-awareness and emotion management skills in order to be calm, patient and effective in decision-making.
• EI in constructions sector
In construction field, literature review revealed mixed results. While Butler and Chinowsky (2006) mentioned that EI and leadership in the constructions sector are strongly related, Lindebaum & Cartwright (2010) and Lindebaum & Cassell (2012) failed to establish a connection of leadership effectiveness and EI in this field. It is accepted (and also mentioned by Lindebaum & Cartwright (2010)) that in construction field the
pacesetting and commanding styles are more effective due to the strict timelines, the tight profit margins and the fierce competition. So, an emotional intelligent leader could not be perceived as suitable and capable of succeeding in this field.
It would also be useful to mention that in all continents, the studies that argued about the positive influence of EI were more than these failed to find positive influence, as it is displayed below in Table 6.
EI Impact Continent Total Studies from
this continent
Positive Influence
Negative Influence
Oceania 3 3 0
America 9 7 2
Europe 14 11 3
Asia 7 7 0
Africa 1 1 0
Total 34 29 5
Table 6 – Studies mentioned positive or negative impact of EI according to continent
We can see from the analysis of literature above that EI may have an important role in the way that the leader can handle situations in daily basis and become effective. In most working fields EI has positive effects on leadership process. In total of 67 studies and researches that reviewed, the 57 mentioned a positive influence of EI in leadership.
Especially, transformational leadership is based on EI skills and improving them will definitely help transformational leaders to be effective. On the other hand, transactional leadership seems to be a little influenced by EI, except contingency reward which seems to be positively affected from EI. We can remember from Figure 1 that transformational and transactional leadership are the styles that can be mostly found in modern organizations.
Organizations and companies in our days, are facing many challenges and are propelled to change rapidly in order to be competitive and sustainable. It is admitted that transformational leaders are more capable of bringing people in a state that they can easier accept and adapt to changes (Bass,1990; Daft,2010). Therefore, in order to catch up with the continuous challenges and the necessity of rapid changes, organizations need to have transformational leaders in their workforce. Hence, we can argue that EI will definitely help organizations to build effective transformational leaders. Implementing training programs may be a good way to improve EI skills of leaders and therefore reinforce
leadership skills. Many scholars mentioned the importance of improving EI skills through training. Development EI skills through proper training programs may improve leadership effectiveness (Bharwaney,2007; Quatro,2007; Wolfe,2007; Issah,2018), decision-making ability (Wolfe,2007), eliminate conflicts and manage relationships (Boyatzis et al.,2013;
Rezvani,2019).
Although transactional leadership is less affected by EI, we still believe EI can help transactional leaders due to the fact that contingent reward seems to have positive correlation with EI. It is wise to remember that transactional leadership is mainly based on providing rewards for fulfilling the required tasks. Transactional managers are perceived as effective from these exchanges (promise and rewards, threats and disciplines) (Bass,1990). The success of these exchanges could be arranged by the adjustment of mood and the recognition of employee’s emotions by their leader (Downey et al.,2006).
Furthermore, Coetzee and Schaap (2005), argued that contingent rewards have strong emotional connotations and may related more to transformational than transactional leadership. They claimed that although not in their intentions, when leaders reward their subordinates, the latter feel more satisfied and committed. Satisfaction and commitment by their nature have emotional connotations (Coetzee and Schaap, 2005). Similarly, Barling et al. (2000) perceived contingent reward as an aspect of transformational leadership. They argued that the behaviours of contingent reward are more like the behaviours of transformational leadership, discretionary and positive. In conclusion, although transactional leadership is a task-oriented style, still leaders with higher emotional skills could be more effective as transactional leaders because of the proven correlation between EI and contingent rewards.
It is worth mentioning that in most working sectors, EI seems to be an critical factor for effective leadership and high performance. Studies and researches from public sector, private sector, service sector, industrial and manufacturing sector but also military and navy sector, mostly evidenced positive effects of EI in leaders and subordinates as well.
Jafri et al. (2016) argued that EI employees displaying higher levels of creativity, evaluating multiple options and thinking divergent ways. Wong and Law (2002) & Miao et al. (2017) mentioned that employees with high EI levels can be more satisfied in their job and that companies need to hire emotional intelligent employees in order to increase the levels of satisfaction in their environment. In contrast to the rest results, for constructions field leaders, EI does not contribute on their effectiveness. This fact can be
partially explained by the nature of the construction field. Tight timelines and competition offer fertile ground for pacesetting or commanding styles where EI plays little role.